Some years ago, a populist uprising overthrew an authoritarian regime that had denied its rights to political and economic self-determination for too long. The uprising wasn't ideologically cohesive — parts of it were motivated by democratic zeal, parts by simple frustration with the heavy hand of the regime, parts by desire for progressive religious freedom, and parts by the desire to conserve social structures considered dangerously retrograde by the authorities. And in the years following the uprising, these internal tensions would rupture, threatening to fracture the young nation and once very nearly doing so. The nation had to absorb unexpected multitudes without losing its common purpose; had to redefine its self-understanding of "citizen" to include minorities, then women; had to navigate the tricky paths from poverty to wealth and weakness to power.
It managed to, albeit slowly and imperfectly.
When I read what seems to be the consensus view among foreign-policy "realists" on the matter of Egypt — namely, that the incoherence of the uprising and the structural problems of Egyptian society perhaps may make Mubarak's survival preferable — I can't help but think of this nation's messy and imperfect democratic revolution....Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/egyptian-revolution-5135493?src=rss
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